By Thia James

POLL: Councillor wants to axe executive committee meetings

Sep 17, 2014 | 7:20 AM

One councillor is proposing a change that would reduce the number of meetings that members of city council attend.

Coun. Lee Atkinson raised the spectre of possibly eliminating executive committee meetings altogether – at Monday’s executive committee meeting. At executive committee meetings, members of council review items on the agenda and make recommendations that are passed along to the next city council meeting.

For Atkinson, the problem is the committee of the whole in camera meetings seem to extend beyond the allocated time, and then the executive committee meeting has to be fit in.

“And therefore a certain aspect to me was always that somewhat redundancy of the executive committee, considering it’s not council, most of the agenda is going to be rehashed next week and therefore the idea of just eliminating executive and just have committee of the whole,” he said.

His suggestion would mean the elimination of the open door, public meetings, and keeping the closed door, closed curtain meetings.

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But, as Atkinson said, it’s “just a suggestion.”

That’s something Mayor Greg Dionne is very much against.

He pointed to nights like Monday, where members of council had some of their longest debates about some of the issues on the agenda. As well, they asked for more information for the following week’s council meeting.

“So, if we didn’t have that meeting, when we came to council, we wouldn’t be making very many decisions because we’d be waiting for more information. And he’s absolutely right, it is a two-phased thing that sometimes executive committee is an event for council. But that’s what it is. When it comes to council, I want to make a decision: approved or not. I don’t want to make it, ‘well, let’s wait another two weeks because we need more information.’”

Dionne believes executive committee is a useful tool if used correctly.

“But in some councillors’ cases, they don’t use it because the cameras are not there. So they want to wait until they’re on camera to do their talking. Well, I want to be more efficient, and when it comes to council, I want to make decisions.”

Making the executive committee meetings work more effectively is up to individual councillors, according to Dionne. He plans to continue to get others to participate in the meetings, and he promises more presentations at the executive committee meetings instead of council.

“Some people don’t like coming to council because of cameras and everything else. So, we’re going to start having presentations and put some more substance into what the executive committee will do.”

The meetings are generally well attended.

Last year, four members of council attended all 20 executive committee meetings, three missed only one meeting, one councillor missed three meetings and another missed five. 

Council last week approved removing the inquiry section from meetings. During that portion of meetings, councillors could raise concerns on behalf of residents in their ward to members of administration in a public setting.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames